Marching Orders, No. IV
“Freely ye have received, freely give.” — Matt. x. 8.
The context shows that we must not content ourselves with applying this only to silver and gold. Those to whom the command was spoken neither possessed nor provided any. Far greater gifts had they received, far greater gifts were they to give.
What have we freely received! Our Bibles give us a threefold answer. i. Love: God our Father says, “I will love them freely.” 2. Justification: for we are “justified freely by His grace,” and “by His blood.” 3. Life: for lbsays, “1 will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” And unto us has been preached this “gospel of God freely.”
We are responsible not only for having received such gifts, but for knowing that we have received them, for “we have received...
the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” The whole Bible is one long inventory of the things that are freely given to us, and yet we cannot reckon our wealth, for “all things are yours.” Possessing the one unspeakable gift, Jesus Christ Himself, is “possessing all things.”
1 ‘As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same.” How will you do this? Can you make it a question of shillings or pounds, dollars or cents? Is that what you have received? Is that as you have received? Will you not say, “I will freely sacrifice unto Thee”? Sacrifice! what? “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.” Is there not one reader of the Church Missionary Gleanor and of Woman s Work, who, having “received Christ Jesus the Lord,” will go at His word, and “freely” make known the good news of life from the dead, and healing and cleansing through Him? There are so many who would delight to go, but whose way God has entirely hedged up. Are there none whose way is not so hedged up? He who spared not His own Son, but with Him freely gives us all things, is saying, very clearly and loudly, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Will any one who might say, “Here am I, send me!” refuse to say it?